In his
first role of any notable significance beyond a cameo in a decade, Arnold
Schwarzenegger and his unique, larger-than-life persona are back where they
belong. This is an older
Schwarzenegger, who walks with a noticeable limp and wears his pants a little
high, but that hasn't ruined his appeal—the accent that somehow seems
perfectly normal in a small town in Arizona and the way he delivers one-liners
(including one that acknowledges the accent and another—the best one—that is
simply a single word of gratitude to a shotgun-wielding old lady). In fact, age has given his screen persona a little more
heft. The Schwarzenegger character in The
Last Stand seems more physically vulnerable and is more emotionally exposed.

In the
waning hours of the night, as he and his deputies prepare to take on a horde of
thugs that outnumber and outgun them, Schwarzenegger's Sheriff Ray Owens admits
to one of his subordinates that he's probably more afraid than she is. The reason is a simple one: He's seen plenty of violence in the
past. "I know what's coming," he imparts with a sense of dread. The film gives Ray a back story that explains his
trepidation. It's slim (a short mention of a deadly shootout that caused him to leave
the Los Angeles Police Department), but it's all that is necessary. As an audience, we instantly recall Schwarzenegger's cinematic past, and
that's the only back story we really need.

After
that disastrous chapter in his life, Ray moved to the small town of Sommerton on
the Arizona-Mexico border. Life is
much quieter here, especially when most of the town departs for the weekend to
watch the high school football team play an away game; it's the kind of town
where the milk delivery man being late is reason enough for a call to the
Sheriff. Ray is looking forward to a
few days away from work.

It
never ends for him, though, as he notices a pair of shifty out-of-towners at the
diner, including a man named Burrell (Peter Stormare) who plays a significant
role in the carnage that follows, and sets Deputies Mike Figuerola (Luis Guzmán)
and Jerry Bailey (Zach Gilford) to check out the man's record. His third deputy Sarah Torrance (Jaimie Alexander) is busy keeping an eye
on her ex-boyfriend Frank (Rodrigo Santoro), a veteran of Iraq who has had
trouble adapting after coming home and is currently in lockup at the station for
drunk and disorderly conduct.

Meanwhile,
Agent John Bannister (Forest Whitaker) with the FBI is in charge of transferring
Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega), a dangerous drug cartel leader, to federal
death row. There's a daring escape
involving an industrial magnet, zip-lines, and multiple decoys, and soon enough,
Cortez is on the run with Ellen Richards (Genesis Rodriguez), another FBI agent,
as a hostage. Cortez is a ruthless
man; he shoots an unarmed FBI agent after mentioning the man's pregnant wife as
a way to get him to drop his gun. Bannister
is certain Cortez is heading south on the interstate to reach Mexico and thinks
Sommerton might be a possible, if unlikely, route.

We are
short an important detail, though. Cortez'
escape vehicle is a souped-up sports car, capable of outrunning even a
helicopter, and Cortez himself was once a professional race driver. Time is of the essence, and director Jee-woon Kim ensures we understand
that point by informing us of the time at the start of almost every scene.

Andrew
Knauer's screenplay streamlines the complications of the various threads, from a
murder investigation just outside the town limits (Ray puts together
everything—the murder, the suspicious visitors, and the fugitive—rather
quickly with a simple, "They're all connected") to a traitor in the
ranks of the FBI. The plot—and
there is a lot of it—does not matter. It's
just a way to bring Ray and his cohorts into conflict with Cortez' men, while
Bannister begrudgingly comes to accept Ray's assessment of Cortez' plan and the
fugitive makes the speedy trip down the highway.

The
screenplay is patchwork in its assembly, and it provides a handful of
opportunities for diverse action setpieces. Kim shows a steady hand in executing them and a firm control of the
film's sometimes disparate tone. Despite
the foreboding of Ray and his associates, including a gun enthusiast played by
Johnny Knoxville who runs a museum in his barn, before the big standoff in the
streets of Sommerton, the extended sequence itself plays out in a predictable
exchange of bullets and eruption of blood. It's
brutal, yes, but also playful—an old-fashioned Western setup (Burrell even
brandishes an old-time revolver) with bursts of macabre humor.

It
works, in large part because Kim takes advantage of the layout of the street on
which the battle occurs and its many barriers (primarily in how those can be
eliminated by rockets and a school bus), side routes (There's a tense standoff
in a tight stairwell), and levels (Combatants take to the rooftops and, in one
moment, fall quite violently from them). Kim
knows when to hold on eerie moments of silence before the chaos, such as when
the police at a road block wait for whatever surprise Cortez has planned or when
the lights go out on Jerry and Sarah as they encounter Burrell and his men.

Save
for those moments and a few like it, the entirety of The
Last Stand is a relatively quiet buildup to the onslaught of the finale. It relies on the lazy-weekend attitude of people who don't see what's
coming, and the comfort in knowing that we can easily accept Schwarzenegger as a
Southwestern sheriff who will save the day.